The gallant blade

IF the phrase “mission impossible” hadn’t already been used elsewhere, it would have made a perfect title for Arturo Perez-Reverte’s second adventure featuring the lethal mercenary with a conscience known as Capt. Diego Alatriste. Instead, the renowned Spanish novelist has chosen “Purity of Blood” for this follow-up tale of intrigue and double-dealing in 17th century Madrid.

The title is an ominous reference to a delicate complication Alatriste must confront as he takes on a clandestine assignment that is doomed. The year is 1623, and the grizzled warrior is considering a return to active duty as a soldier in Flanders, where hostilities with the Dutch are flaring anew. It’s also a place where his facility with knife and pistol might give him some needed distance from people in high places who are still annoyed at having been outmaneuvered in a previous encounter.

But as we learned in last year’s “Captain Alatriste,” the first novel in a five-part series (Perez-Reverte wrote the series early in his career, but they are only now being translated into English), this is a man whose moral streak occasionally clouds his judgment. Last time around, his intended marks were allowed to escape by virtue of having displayed uncommon courage in the face of death. Now Alatriste is persuaded by a good friend, the notable poet-about-town Francisco de Quevedo, to rescue the daughter of a prominent patron from the clutches of a lascivious priest. The reason her father is unable to rescue her from the convent himself is out of fear that he will be exposed for a heritage that lacks “purity of blood” -- in other words, for being of Jewish ancestry. This would be catastrophic for his family’s name and fortune.

As recalled years later by Inigo Balboa, the captain’s 13-year-old ward at the time of the unpleasantness (and now, in later life, his self-appointed biographer), nothing seemed right on the night of the incursion. Sure enough, an ambush waited within the convent walls that Alatriste managed to escape. But his ward was caught outside by none other than Alatriste’s nemesis, the Italian assassin Gualterio Malatesta. What follows in Balboa’s account is not so much what happens to the pitiful girl in the convent -- she’s never much more than a marginal presence -- but how he survived his ordeal as a captive of unscrupulous people all too eager to resort to spectacular autos-da-fe for the amusement of the populace.

Perez-Reverte is a master at evoking the particular color of the times, with brothels, taverns, torero arenas and dark alleyways as essential props. If there is a bone to pick with “Purity of Blood,” it is that Perez-Reverte allows perhaps too much of the back story to get in the way of the central narrative. Margaret Sayers Peden’s translation from the Spanish, meanwhile, is excellent.

Especially interesting in this installment is the growing importance of Inigo as a principal player. We know the lad will survive this dilemma -- how else could he narrate from a remove of several decades? -- but he is much more than a chronicler in this episode, and the periodic appearances of Angelica de Alquezar, the dazzling girl who will break his heart one day, portends an even bigger role for him in forthcoming installments. “She was as beautiful as Lucifer before his expulsion from Paradise,” Balboa notes wryly, and we can only imagine what manner of mischief she will be up to in future encounters. We’ll find out in due course, with the third episode scheduled for publication here next year. *